Although it might sound like bland financial lingo, it’s actually the best news tenants could get right now. In a nutshell, rental rates have stayed still while property prices have been soaring.

According to CoreLogic’s January Rent Review, capital city rental markets have seen no growth over the past 12 months. In fact, dwelling rental growth is now at its lowest level on record.

Currently, the median rent rate is recorded at $443 across the combined capital cities.

Over the same 12-month period, combined capital city home values were up 7.3 per cent.

Research analyst Cameron Kusher said: “CoreLogic RP Data has tracked annual rental changes since 1996 and over that time, rental growth conditions have never been weaker. At the same time last year rental rates had increased by 1.7 per cent highlighting that the slowdown in rental conditions has been sharp over the year.”

He said a combination of factors is affecting the national rental market at the moment.

“Among these is a higher level of rental stock resulting in greater options for renters, a slowdown in population growth, higher than normal investment activity and stagnant wage growth,” he said.

“For renters there is a lot more accommodation options in the market while simultaneously, landlords are now required to respond to a more competitive environment which, in many cases means keeping rents steady or in some areas reducing rents in order to keep a tenant.”

The CoreLogic analysis shows rents across the combined capitals rose by 0.2 per cent in January 2016 and the only capital cities to see a rise in rents over the month were Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart and Canberra, elsewhere rents dropped.

But those rises were more than modest. Rents increased in Sydney by 1.4 per cent, in Melbourne 2.1 per cent, were up 1 per cent in Hobart and rose in Canberra by 1.8 per cent.

However, despite their lacklustre performances over the past year, rents in Sydney and Melbourne are still hitting the hip pocket hard where renters are handing over about a third of their weekly wages to their landlords.

According to another study out today from finder.com.au, Sydneysiders are spending 37.9 per cent of their weekly earnings on rent while Melburnians are forking out 30.7 per cent of their salaries.

The CoreLogic study also said rents fell over the past year in Brisbane by 0.7 per cent, in Adelaide by 0.4 per cent, were down 0.6 per cent in Perth and down in Darwin by a huge 13.4 per cent.

Across every capital city except Canberra the rate of annual rental growth or decline is currently lower than it was a year ago, indicating the weaker rental market conditions are prevalent across most capital cities.